


Sweet Music

by shella688



Category: I Am In Eskew (Podcast), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: AU: The Mechs are a Creation of the Horror City Eskew, Body Horror, Gen, Mention of Gore, POV First Person, Set at an unspecified point before Riyo arrives in Eskew, my crossovers just get more and more niche huh, temporary major character death, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24809506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shella688/pseuds/shella688
Summary: Eskew has a music to it, if you know how to listen. The percussion beat of thousands of footsteps, the melody in the squealing of the trains overhead. Today, the music of Eskew comes in the form of nine musicians, playing outside my office.My name is David Ward, and I am in Eskew.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	Sweet Music

  
Eskew has a music to it, if you know how to listen. The percussion beat of thousands of footsteps, the melody in the squealing of the trains overhead. Today, the music of Eskew comes in the form of nine musicians, playing outside my office.

I carefully avoid looking at their faces, in the hopes that maybe they will let me past. They, of course, notice me instantly.

"Spare us some change mate?" asks the frontman, stepping up to me.

"Sorry," I say. "I'm all out" It's a hollow excuse, really, I haven't even bothered to check.  
I try and push past him, my eyes remaining on the floor. I am struck by the sensation that, by looking at the musicians, I would be acknowledging their existence in a way that my muttered apology didn't.

"Come on," says the frontman. "We'll play a song for you, a story grim as pistol lead and just as deadly. Spare us some change mate?"

Despite my efforts, I have been dragged into the performance. What role, I wonder, does the city want me to play this time?

My name is David Ward, and I am in Eskew.

* * *

They are still there when I leave the office that evening. The walls are too thick to let any of their sound inside, but I expect it's only a matter of time before someone invites them in regardless, in the hopes of "livening the place up a bit".

I keep my head down and my hands in my pockets, but the this time the frontman grabs my arm as I pass and spins me to face him.

"Spare us some change mate?"

And, for the first time, I look up at his face. Black veins spread out from his eyes.

No, that's not entirely true - they're too thin, too sharp and vicious. It's not veins I'm looking at, but cracks.

Cracks that branch like spiderwebs out from the corners of his eyes and behind them I can make out nothing but empty darkness. If you picked at them, I wonder, would his face break like pottery? Dig your fingers into the cracks and snap flesh off in shards until there is no face left to break, then keep going further still. Break the eggshell of his body and grind it beneath your heel until there is no frontman, just the shattered remains of what maybe was human.

"Spare us some change mate?" and I shake myself free from his grasp and I don't run, because running draws attention, but I walk quickly and firmly away and I do not look back.

* * *

It was foolish to hope the musicians would leave. They're still here the next day, and the one after, singing their songs and playing their music.

The frontman and I settle into a routine, of sorts. Something that could be a dance, if you looked at it from the right angle.

He waves at me with a "spare us some change mate?" and I never even check as I reply. "Sorry, I'm all out."

There's a script to the evening as well.

"Come on," he'll say. "Anything you've got. Spare us some change mate?"

And he'll grab my arm, and I'll look at his face, and try to see if the cracks are spreading, if any pieces of him have broken off yet.

Never once does it occur to me to break character, to try something else this time round. I'm not entirely sure Eskew would let me.

* * *

Today, the set has changed.

The frontman is missing. In his place now stands the guitarist, and he beckons me over with a wave.

"Do you want to hear a secret?" he asks.

He appears to be going off script. Or, perhaps the rules shifted when I wasn't looking and now the relative stability of previous interactions is crumbling beneath me.

I go up to him like I would have done before - I will play my old role for as long as I can. My new partner in this dance grins wildly. It isn't a happy grin - it's bordering feral and forcibly reminds me why, for so many other mammals, baring the teeth is an act of aggression.

The guitarist pauses for dramatic effect, far longer than is strictly necessary.

"We killed our lead singer!" he says happily. Then he laughs, like this is the funniest thing he could imagine.

There's music to his savage laughter. A dance in the way he's bent double and his shoulders shake violently and his fists are clenched tight enough to for his nails to cut deep.

"We killed our lead singer!" he says again, in between great heaving laughs torn bloody from his chest.

I back away from him. Or, at least, I try. Eskew has never let me escape that easily.

The guitarist's head snaps up audibly, his laughter cut short. He doesn't smile now, as he motions towards a hat laid on the ground, clearly wanting me to add to the pile of objects collected in it that, from this distance at least, look like coins.

The hat is the drummer's, and I realise with a start that he's not here either. For a moment I wonder where he is - where both him and the frontman are - but experience has taught me some things are better left unquestioned.

"We killed him, our lead singer." The guitarist is still staring at me, his voice vicious. "Cut off his head and stabbed him in the back and threw him into space."

His eyes whir and click like camera lenses as they focus and refocus on me.

No, it dawns on me, not _like_ camera lenses. If something is blank and empty like a camera lens, if a shutter snaps across it instead of an eyelid, well-

I don't think I need to finish that thought.

"Spare us-" he starts saying, but I'm trying to shake off his gaze and this time I _am_ running - away from my office, away from the seven musicians who aren't even playing anymore, just watching me.

I don't lose the sensation of being watched for a long time.

* * *

It's not a conscious choice to return to the office. It's odd, really - I don't remember leaving my house this morning, nor do I remember getting back home last night. But here I am, walking towards the office once again.

The frontman is back. He's facing away from me, talking to the drummer - who has also returned, it would seem. Seeing them both relaxes me, almost. Maybe the incident with the guitarist yesterday was just a fluke, something I ate, perhaps, or an illness I hadn't noticed I'd caught. There's an explanation for all this, I'm sure.

But then the frontman turns to face me, and I stop. Because the frontman isn't _entirely_ back.

His face has shattered. The right side of it has gone entirely, the flesh sharp where it has broken, and through the gap I can see-

I see nothing. There's nothing there, just a hollow cavity and light filtering through the cracks that now reach all the way around the back of his head.

The frontman looks at me with his remaining eye, and what's left of his mouth twists into a grin.  
"Well if it isn't our David," he says.

I have never told him my name.

"If it isn't our David Ward."  
He motions, but all I cam focus on arare the cracks. They've spread further than I first thought - criss-crossing his palm and ending in jagged spikes where a finger has snapped off.  
"Spare us some change mate?"

And what else can I do but follow my lines?  
"Sorry, I'm all out."  
I'm proud, in a way, of how little my voice wavers.

Something in the frontman crunches as he lets me past, but I don't turn to look. We're both, I think, falling apart at the seams. How long will it be before I start seeing cracks in myself? How long before I see cracks in the world itself?

That night, I leave through a back door I'm sure didn't exist yesterday.

* * *

They've gone.

The spot outside my office where the nine musicians stood now lies empty, no sign of anyone.

No-one in my office has seen them. No-one is my office has seen them _ever_.

"It's always been empty David," they say with choking false pity. "Don't you think we'd know? Don't you think we'd have heard them?"

I hear the message Eskew is telling me. For the rest of the day I am silent, the perfect image of a hard working employee.

As I leave the office, it comes as no real surprise that my pockets - which have been otherwise empty all day - have some small change in them.

I take out a few coins, and toss them onto the pavement. They spin and clink to a stop right where the drummer's hat once was.

The wind sighs like a curtain falling and something, almost imperceptibly, shifts. The show is over at last, the dance is finally done.

Be with you again soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Come shout at me on tumblr! [regicidal-defenestration](https://regicidal-defenestration.tumblr.com/)


End file.
